


Routine

by pickleplum



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Gen, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-21
Updated: 2014-01-21
Packaged: 2018-01-09 11:29:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1145444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pickleplum/pseuds/pickleplum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermann Gottlieb thrives on routine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Routine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheOxfordEnglishFangeek (jadinacookie)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadinacookie/gifts).



Hermann Gottlieb thrives on routine and wears it like armor against the constant shifts of humanity's ongoing war with giant alien monsters and its own fear and stupidity. At least, that's what the psychologists write in his file. "Near pathological need to avoid change and protect himself from the vagaries of human relationships,” they scribble. “A need for order to build walls against the rejection and disapproval he has faced his entire life. A way to fill his hours so completely that it leaves no room for another to burrow in.” The reality is much simpler. Hermann’s routine is driven not by his mind but by his body.

By nature he is a night owl (or a vampire, if you ask his lab partner) and he works best when allowed to remain at his boards until deep into the small hours. Even so, his first medication of the day demands he awake at six a.m. So he does.

Seven steps across his small room to his bathroom with the neat row of bottles above the sink. He brushes his teeth with the strongest mint toothpaste he can buy to make sure he’s awake enough for what comes next. Every other day: an injection of Betaseron. He spends a few minutes stretching before stepping into an extra hot shower to loosen tense muscles. He towels off and swallows a handful of vitamins with a gulp of water.

Eight towel-clad steps to the wardrobe. Piece by piece, he pulls the garments out and puts them on: underwear, pants, undershirt, button-up, sweatervest, belt, coat, socks, shoes. The layers are for warmth as well as style. His circulation has never been good and he can’t raise his weight to a healthy level because of the constant nausea brought on by the only muscle relaxant that allows him to move somewhat freely.

He assesses his condition to decide whether he should take an extra muscle relaxant. It’s seven-fifteen when he picks up his cane and walks, still stiffly, to the mess hall for a simple breakfast. 

By eight, he’s at the lab, pulling a capsules from the bottles of antidepressants and anti-fatigue drugs kept in a locked drawer of his desk. He swallows them dry and begins heating water for the first pot of tea of the day. He’d given up coffee after the doctors told him it was interacting with one or another of his medications to cause ventricular tachycardia. At eight-fifteen there’s a perfectly steeped cup resting on its saucer on his desk and he sips from it as he checks the emails that have accumulated since he left the lab at two that morning. 

Nothing is pressing, so he limps to his boards to begin the day’s work in earnest.

**Author's Note:**

> Written in response to a prompt from [The Oxford English Fangirl](http://the-oxford-english-fangirl.tumblr.com/) asking me for my headcanon on Hermann's morning routine.
> 
> Music to set the mood: The Constantines, _Shine a Light_ , Track 6, “Goodbye Baby & Amen” (Unfortunately no audio this time. I can find a free play of every other track on the album, but for some reason, not this one. And there are a lot of other songs out there with the same title that sound absolutely nothing like this one. Don’t be fooled into thinking it’s something perky!)


End file.
